Goody's Lake Tahoe Crossing

Early on Wednesday morning Joelle and I took a road trip to Jamie Patrick's cabin in Truckee where Goody was already there waiting for us to accompany him on his big swim for 2015:  A 21 mile length crossing of Lake Tahoe from Camp Richardson Beach to Hyatt Beach on the north:

We met with him and talked for only about 2 hours before Jamie arrived from San Francisco and we took off to go get the boat and start the swim.

We were able to get the boat put in about half way down on the eastern side and it took about an hour to get to the south end.  Goody read his instructions to us which we already were very familiar with, and Jamie reviewed the very basic rules.

Only one suit, goggles, grease, camp.  Don't tough the boat or anyone.  Support swimmer up to one hour.  Start on dry land, finish on dry land.

We arrived where Goody greased up and got in for his swim.

When we began there was a pretty crazy boat presence so we made sure to stay close to him and since the boat didn't have a swimmer flag onboard, we improvised and used my red jacket as a flag dangling from a pole which we held up.

It was fairly choppy and windy near the start, but going in the northerly direction.  I got in for an hour after a couple hours of him already swimming.  The water was so blue!  I've swam in Tahoe before, but only about 100 yards from shore.  Never in the deep like this. It was awesome!  I'm so excited to do this swim myself next year.

The wind calmed down, and changed directions half way into the night to a nearly easterly direction.  But nothing major.  Goody appeared tired and his stroke was degrading.  He requested a pace swimmer, so I got in for him even though it was dark and I could barely see him through my somewhat foggy goggles.

After an hour of night swimming with him, I got out and piloted for about a half hour while Jamie tried to get some sleep.  It was a long night for everyone.

When the sun came up it seemed to cheer him up.  He really liked the feeds when they were warmed up, so we did our best to heat up some water using body heat since we didn't have any warm water on board.

As we neared the finish we were concerned about his pace, it was abnormally slow for him, however he was still making progress, and didn't appear to be hypothermic, so on we went.

When we got within about 300 yard or so from shore I jumped in with the Go Pro, but it's a new goPro so I wasn't as familiar with the display and screwed up the recording, but Joelle did capture some video on my camera from the boat.

I was so proud of him for sticking with it and not giving up even though he felt like crap most of the swim.  He broke down at the finish and said he would have touched the boat and given in to his temptation to give up had I not supported him in the water.  Man, I'm glad I came.  What a stud for making it from start to finish!

Getting ready to start

All greased up, and putting ear plugs in.

At Camp Richardson beach.  We took great caution to watch
him the first mile out where there was significant boat traffic.

Pace swimming with Goody about 2 hours into it.

Joelle pace swims for half an hour the next morning.

Notice that it calmed down pretty good near the end.  Almost
glasslike conditions.

Just beautiful

The crew with the man himself.

Here's the video highlights I put together for him:

Total yards that I swam (estimated): 
1.5 miles for 2 hours